One Man And His Dog Er Cat
by nekohebi
Summary: Archie is dead (boo!), but now Hornblower had met a nice kitten (woo!) and the seas await! Humour me, please! RR! CH3 is here!
1. As A Kitten

Wooo!!!! I've written this story!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing!!! Nothing at all!!!!!! (Apart from my Vaseline, that is... yes, I am mad)  
  
Please review, it makes me (",)happy(",)  
  
!!!!!!!!{[*]}!!!!!!!!  
  
__One_Man_And_His_Dog...er...Cat__  
  
Horatio Hornblower was crying. Not in public, but in a deserted part of the harbour. The reason that this usually unexpressive man was bawling his eyes out (silently) was that his best friend, Archie Kennedy, had just gone and died. This had upset his quite a bit.  
  
The sadness of the moment was spoilt as a small ball of fur fell from the roof above him, bounced off his head and landed at his feet.  
  
If it'd been human, it would no doubt been described as having strawberry- blond hair. It turned its big blue eyes on Hornblower and meowed pitifully.  
  
Archie felt thoroughly pleased with himself. He was a kitten!!! Oh, yeah, and he'd found Hornblower...  
  
Hornblower looked at the small kitten in surprise. It looked back. It sneezed. Hornblower managed a watery smile. He patted it gently.  
  
Archie began purring.  
  
"You remind me of Archie, in some weird way..." Hornblower said vaguely to the kitten.  
  
Archie yawned affectionately at him.  
  
!!!!!!!!{[*]}!!!!!!!!  
  
I know it's short, but if you review and gimme help, I can write better and longer chapters!!!  
  
REVIEW!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!  
  
*__*  
  
I am hyper... 


	2. Setting Sail

HI, it's me!!!!  
  
I'm still alive!!!  
  
Thanks be to all who reviewed the previous chapter and my spellchecker.  
  
~~~  
  
Archie walked along the harbour, looking for a ship. He had to be careful because he didn't want any of the sailors to stand on his beautiful tail or put his delicate paws in, horror of horrors, and (evil) water.  
  
Finally, after a close encounter with a puddle, he found what he was looking for: the Retribution.  
  
He then proceeded to get on to the ship without being seen. This was easier than it perhaps should have been.  
  
A few hours passed.  
  
The ship set sail.  
  
Horatio Hornblower, who was the captain of the Retribution, was walking up and down his deck in the sun. It was a fairly normal deck and a fairly normal, sunny day.  
  
Horatio paused under the mast to breathe in the fresh sea air. A small bundle of strawberry-blond fur (and claws) hit him on the head. Again.  
  
Horatio let out an exclamation of surprise and, mainly, pain, due to the kitten-claws currently buried in his scalp.  
  
"Get off!!!!" he yelled.  
  
"Mia – ow!!!!" Archie screamed as he fell off Horatio's head, onto the deck.  
  
"A ship's cat, sir! Great idea!" Matthews said, petting Archie.  
  
The rest of the crew abandoned their various jobs and started cooing at the kitten and discussing names for it.  
  
A random sailor, called Stan checked a very indignant Archie, proving that, yes, this was a tom cat (or kitten).  
  
"How about calling him Melvin?" one of them suggested.  
  
"No, he's not a Melvin! How about Bob?" anther replied.  
  
"Bob? No way! I think Fred!" a third cried.  
  
"John would be nice!" yet another commented.  
  
And so they decided that Archie wasn't a Melvin, Bo, Fred, John, Jim, Jesus, Frank, Bill, Frankincense, Myrrh, Orange, Merry, William, Pegasus, Brandy, Vodka or Pippin.  
  
"How 'bout Archie?" asked a slightly weary Matthews.  
  
"Yeah!" agreed another unnamed sailor.  
  
"Good one!" said a second.  
  
"I like it!" proclaimed Stan.  
  
Then, with the entire crew being satisfied that the ship's cat had a name, Archie, they all dashed off to save the boat from crashing due to no-one steering/etc-ing it.  
  
Horatio was left with Archie in his arms.  
  
"I could have sworn I've seen you before........." he muttered.  
  
Archie smirked and went to sleep.  
  
Horatio frowned – he wasn't sure if cats could smirk...........................  
  
~~~  
  
Now review. Please. 


	3. First Battle

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

»Anything within these thingys are my ramblings that aren't actually part of the story. It is here I try to justify myself to you.«

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The ship, with ship's cat, sailed along peacefully for some time, with few events worth note.

Well, it was peaceful until _The Retribution_ met a French ship, called _La Commode_, whose captain was a very unpleasant man called Jean Rouge »Yes, I know that means the chest of drawers, or something simimular, but I wasn't feeling particularey inspired.«, and they engaged in combat. And combat isn't really very peaceful.

La Commode, sadly, was a bigger, more heavily armed ship, so they succeded in boarding The Retribution. 

This meant that there was a ferocious battle taking place on the deck of _The Retribution_. Horatio was engaging the enemy captain (Rouge) in a sword fight.

Archie was being incredibly helpful. At the fist sign of danger, he did what any self-respecting cast would have done. He ran up the mast and, digging his claws into the timber, went to sleep.

As a human, he would have been fighting side-by-side with his dear friend, Horatio. As a cat, he just left his friend to get on with it.

The ship lurched, as it wasn't really very good weather (it was raining. A lot), and there was no-one who was really stearing the ship, as most of the crew where busy fighting.

The lurching of the ship caused the mast to move in such a way that caused Archie to fall screaming through the air.

And land on the head of Rouge, who was currently in a position of having just disarmed Horatio.

Archie's claws fitted neatly into Rouge's eyes, to help prevent him (Archie) from falling.

Rouge screamed and started thrashing about, as most people tended to do when some cat has just landed on your head and sunk its claws into your eyes and scalp.

Archie screamed at the attempts to dislodge him (he'd fallen enough for one day) and subsiquently dug his claws in deeper.

This caused Rouge to scream louder and thrash about more.

All the sailors, from both the ships, stopped trying to kill each other, and watched in amazement as Rouge keeled over due to pain and bloodloss, into the sea. Archie jumped off his head, just as he realised that the man was heading towards the Evil Wet Thing.

The crew of _La Commode_ retreated in poor fashion, once they'd realised that _The Retribution_'s cat had defeated their captain.

It was a victory for Archie and _The Retribution_.

Archie curled up in a coiled up rope and returned to sleeping.

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Thanks for reading.

Now please review!!!!


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